The present invention is related to establishing the layout of a building. More specifically, the present invention is related to establishing the layout of the building with a laser rangefinder.
The ability to measure as-built residential, commercial, and industrial structures is becoming increasingly important for real estate marketing and remodeling. The current state of the art in this field is manual measurement and sketching which is not cost effective enough to meet the demands of these applications. The present invention will overcome these problems and provides a system that will meet the existing demand for fast, low cost floor plan measurement.
The present invention pertains to an apparatus for establishing a layout of a building. The apparatus comprises a mechanism for scanning a first room of the building to obtain room data. The apparatus also comprises a mechanism for forming a representation of a layout of the first room from the first room data. The forming mechanism is connected to the scanner.
The present invention pertains to a method for establishing the layout of a building. The method comprises the steps of placing a scanner in a first room of the building. Then there is the step of scanning the first room with the scanner to obtain first room data. Then there is the step of forming a representation of the layout of the first room from the first room data.
The present invention pertains to a floor plan mapping apparatus which is comprised of a scanning laser range sensor, a portable computer, and a WindowsXX based user interface. The apparatus has the capability of quickly generating accurate floor plans of existing residential, commercial, and industrial structures.
The laser scanner extracts 3D information from the walls of each room in which it is placed. The 3D information is returned as a set of data points. The point set is processed by a set of algorithms which will convert the data points into line segments represented in an industry standard data format (such as DXF). The operator uses an interactive interface to add standard architectural details which cannot be reasonably represented by the laser range data. This includes bathroom fixtures, window details, appliances, and others. The result is further processed to generate a professional looking line drawing with notations which can be printed, inserted as an image in other documentation, or placed directly on a Web Site.